Oh, the hypocrisy …

Posted By
David Harsanyi
On
August 26, 2010 @ 12:48 pm
In
2010 U.S. Senate Race,Uncategorized |
11 Comments

There are a number of Americans who believe Washington’s earmark system should be reformed. That states should keep tax dollars local rather than send those funds to a centralized federal government that disperses them as it sees fit — a process laden with cronyism.

But supporters of earmark reform are often forced to operate in the flawed system available to them. As the Denver Post reported [1]today we see that Republican Senate candidate Ken Buck[2] asked for $5 million as Weld County D.A. for a gang task force and a hospital, etc …

As Buck has signed a pledge promising to refuse earmarks in the future if elected, certainly his request (though he had no vote) is a legitimate issue to point out. And naturally, Democrats pounced on the supposed jaw-dropping hypocrisy of it all.

But using the same equation voters could ask other questions. Take Democratic Senate candidate Michael Bennet[3], who strongly opposes the Bush “tax cuts for the rich.”

A fiscal policy that relies on cutting taxes for the very wealthiest of Americans, the people that needed tax cuts the least, borrowing the money from the Chinese and forcing our kids to pay for those taxes is not a fiscal policy that the people of Colorado are interesting in pursuing. I don’t think we can afford it.

(Holy populist pabulum!)

But if this were all true, surely Bennet would have abstained from partaking in those destructive tax cuts — which benefited him personally — when he made nearly $12 million [5]in two years only shortly after the cuts were enacted?